


December 6th, 1926

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, sad!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Percival Graves never made it home for Christmas





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kallistob](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistob/gifts).



December 6th.

December 6th, 1926. This was the date Newt landed on American soil. This was the start of the beginning of the end of Grindelwald’s time in MACUSA. This marked the first of the hurried mess of days in which Newt, the aurors, and the wizarding world learned that Percival Graves was missing.

December 10th, 1926, and Graves’ second in command kneels in front of the fire and closes her eyes and doesn’t want to make this call. The flames flare green and she takes a single breath to steady herself.

“Mr Graves, sir? It’s Graham. Elizabeth Graham - Liz, sir, yes, that’s me. May I come through?”

December 10th, 1926, and Graves’ father blinks, unsure, un _believing,_ unable to comprehend, and asks, in a voice that’s quiet and broken and too old but still too young to ever hear this, if she’s sure.

“We are, sir,” is all she can say. She doesn’t promise to find Graves. She tells him they’re looking, because they are; she doesn’t tell him Graves is strong, because his father already knows. She does promise to keep him updated. It’s all she can do.

December 10th, 1926, and Leodegrance Graves walks like a man in a dream, detached from himself and oddly disconnected. He finds himself in the kitchen; he doesn’t remember how. Carlotta is crouched by the oven, squinting through the charmed see-through door at the mince pies and waiting for them to brown. Leo stares at her in silence and doesn’t want her to notice him, as though he can protect her from the truth by refusing to speak it.

She notices him. She smiles as she looks up at him. She hesitates when he doesn’t smile back.

December 10th, 1926, and for the first time in forty three years, the mince pies are burnt.

December 11th. December 12th. December 14th.

They drift through the house, too afraid to go out because where would he go, their son, if not home? He can’t come home to an empty house. And the fire - they hover by the fire, breath catching every time the flames show a hint of green, and how could they leave when the message could come through any day?

Carlotta takes the tree down. They decorated it without him, this year. They never decorate it without him. She’d been hurt when he refused, angry that he’d dismiss them, worried when he wouldn’t return their letters - but she hadn’t thought, she hadn’t  _seen_  and so she takes the tree down and the wreath, the candles, the red poinsettas from the garden. Those she puts behind the shed. She cooks every night and she fills the table with lamb, with risotto, with the fried onions her son likes best, and every night she stares at her plate and doesn’t eat because what kind of person, what kind of mother is she? He’s her  _son_. Her son.

December 18th. December 20th. December 24th.

Leo sits in the room at the top of the stairs, sloped ceilings, window seat, a single twin bed. He sits in the room and a thousand different conversations crowd together on his tongue and threaten to choke him. There are books on the shelves that he used to read aloud each night and a chest in the corner full of wooden wizards he used to corrall into marching bands. Under the bed where his son doesn’t think he’ll see there’s a threadbare rabbit that’s not allowed to fall apart.

He’s not allowed to fall apart.

He’s not allowed to fall apart.

Leo won’t allow that he might have fallen apart.

December 28th. December 30th. January 1st, 1927, and the presents are still wrapped in the study cupboard, the tree is drooping behind the shed, the poinsetta’s red leaves litter the muddy floor.

“It’s been three weeks,” Liz says. “We’re still looking.” She asks if they need anything. They don’t.

January 6th, and Christmas finishes. There is no panettone. There were no mince pies since the ones that burnt. There is no gingerbread, no striped candy, no cinnamon to stir into hot chocolate that’s always too sweet and too childish but always gets drunk too fast all the same.

There is no Percival Graves.

Leo finds himself in the kitchen, hovering in the door way while Carlotta crouches by the oven door. “My love,” he offers, hesitant and unsure.

“He’ll be sad,” she tells him. There is no doubt in her voice. “He’ll be sad he missed Christmas. He loves Christmas. We’ll have it late this year.” She opens the door and nods in satisfaction.

“My life,” Leo tries again. Carlotta nudges aside the new poinsettas to make space on the table and sets down the tray of mince pies, each one baked to golden perfection.

“He’ll be sad,” she insists. On the stove, onions are frying; in the fridge, a leg of lamb marinates in garlic and herbs. There is a rabbit that used to live under their son’s bed and it’s tattered and barely held together, but it’s never been allowed to fall apart; in a stack by Leo’s chair are the books he used to read aloud each night while he stroked a hand through his son’s hair and watched him fall asleep.

He stands by her, close enough for her to lean on but not so close to get in her way as she dusts a star of sugar on the lid of each cooling pie.

“I know,” he says. “I know.” It’s all he can say.


	2. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coffeesugarcream commented on tumblr: if you don’t write a fixit with the Aurors finding a malnourished, half-dead Graves and his wonderful parents rushing to sit by his side and tucking the threadbare rabbit into his cold ghost-fragile hand, his father whispering “You’re not allowed to fall apart, son” in his ear, then I’ll cry

February 3rd, 1927, and Percival Graves claws his way back to near-consciousness. It is, if he’s honest, something of a surprise. The clean sheets and fresh (if somewhat antiseptic) air of what he assumes is a hospital is a second surprise.

The presence of Mr Bun in his arms, all but  _clutched_  against his chest, is a third surprise.

_What,_ he tries to croak, but his voice flops weakly in his throat and refuses to cooperate. He attempts to frown at it, and he thinks he manages to make his eyebrows twitch, but he isn’t sure.

A background noise he hadn’t been aware of stops suddenly with an indrawn breath.

“Percival?” someone says, soft and hopeful, and Graves  _knows_  that voice, he knows it but his head feels like cotton wool and his brain is still stuck on Mr Bun. He attempts to lever himself around to see but his muscles take one look at him and refuse.

There’s a pause. Graves swears at his unresponsive body but it remains helpfully limp and, well, unresponsive. He can’t even open his eyes.

Then a shift, as though someone shook their head, the slight squeak of cardboard as someone picked up a hospital-issue cup of hospital-issue brown water pretending to be coffee, and a gentle cough as someone clears their throat.

“Sep turned and ran home as fast as he could on his bare feet,” the same someone says, picking up where he left off, “leaving the row of seven shoes on the wall casting long shadows in the moon’s blaze of rage. But as he ran a thick white sea fog slid in over the beach…”

The familiar story washes over him like an old blanket and Graves, lulled by the half-forgotten feel of safety, sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> The concept of Graves not being home for Christmas is laid entirely at thegaypumpingthroughyourveins' / kallistob's feet. Why. What did I ever do to you? Don't I write things for you?? Happy things???
> 
> And Liz Graham is an OC belonging to creative-chaos-in-my-head on tumblr who I've borrowed here because she works really well as Graves' second.


End file.
